Tag: writing

Humanity

trying to keep my cup small

Lovelovemotherexpletive

its easier to overflow when you start small, fyi.

wish i could teach the value of small things to other people. there has to be a crack somewhere so i can get in, so i can show this. just a sliver.

the value of small things.

realizing that as much as i love people, and i really do, i can’t handle more than two or three at a time. this is a direct reflection of my hearing loss. the insecurity is overwhelming and I feel directly the shrinking, the ways in which i try to make my own self invisible to counter the possibility of embarrassing myself, or just being lost while surrounded by people. so, i left a conference i wanted to be at today, because it was lunchtime and too much small talk. and i don’t exactly know how i feel about leaving, but i am trying to honor my small cup, and i was overwhelmed and starting to feel isolated, and i needed to leave. so i did.

i’d love to grow flowers, but i listened to a flower farmer at this farmer’s conference and I don’t think I want that. I want to make a hundred dollars in a summer from the yard, or maybe double or triple that, but I don’t want to be a farmer. i don’t have the wherewithal for it. (unless you know two or three people who could build it all for me? cuz, man, if i could start with a greenhouse and some long beds? maybe we’d be talking.) but still, just the stand by the road. that’s it. that’s all. little cups.

i’m hoping to switch things up a little this summer, maybe give me some time to grow my own garden. last year i didn’t have the time and it was a shade of sadness.

yesterday i was bemoaning my lack of writing, and lovely bob leaned over and put his arm on my shoulder and said simply, ‘you do not have the time.’ and he was right. and here i am, finding it and forgiving myself for the times when i choose a movie or a nap instead of productivity.

trying to keep it small, folks.

small things have great value.

love you much,

kate

Browsing at a TJMAXX and not buying this, but loving it?: My medicine after leaving the conference.

Humanity

my coffee is better when it’s in a smaller cup…

Lovelovemotherexpletive

and other things i’ve noticed.

*it’s about the preciousness of it, the necessity of loving it while I have it, for it will soon be gone.

I’m going to stash a bunch of things I’ve written here, and see if the utterly disconnected can be connected, because webs webs webs you know.

  1. The golden woman child that I keep at my core, that dancing molten thing that runs my system, is she percolating, stretching out, trying to send gold out my fingertips, and I’m being sensible and wearing the correct waterproof gear?
  2. where is the wildness in me? Do I want to locate it, really? Will I go along for the ride in joy or will I hold on tight with my just-so gloves and complain about my lack of planning?
    A woman in her carriage, being bounced around, or the driver on top, recklessly bearing down the path… Please let me be the driver. I want to be the driver, gloves on, but driving wildly, on. On.
  3. Life is glorious. Maybe I should actually focus more on my distractions, that is where the joy lives.
  4. And there was so much hope, hope that we would sleep in, that things would be cancelled, although I knew it was not going to come to pass. I tried to let them down softly. At this point, there is only one who still wants to run outside in the dark, trampling snow and bringing in snowballs. I felt myself saying no to an invitation, knowing that next year she may not invite me out, might not even go out, and could feel the snow fall from the branches softly on this part of my life.
  5. I’m my own flit and scurry today, my brain and its wanderings having meshed. The definition of flighty, I suppose. Far from flaky, though, my layers are thick and spangled throughout with scarlet and deepest midnight blue, with the occasional birch bark interlude.
  6. Oh good lord. Don’t I hang on? Drag my dolls through the dirt like so much appalacian storytelling?  I can’t even say anything here. Pulling along behind me all my old stories, the exes now that I am a grown woman, the hurts and slings and arrows, all piled up on that dirty little rag doll.
    I wonder if she’s some inner landscape I have been avoiding? The ways in which she changes and ages, the things that finally fall off of her. If anything does. She appears more worn down than amputated.
    Frazzled, ragged, worn. The words I’m using for my oldest cares. The ones I don’t investigate because they might feel fresh if I should pick them up and dust them off. And I’m not of an age to play with dolls anymore.
    I wonder how she’s tied to me. If there’s a cord cutting that is possible for imaginary doll friends who carry all the old cares, the old hurts and sorrows. And if there is, would she become something I mourn, once I cut her loose?

And there you have it. Some of it. Bits and bites and I’m just curating at this point, making my little cups of strong coffee, cherished.

-kate

Humanity

Sunday, I slept til 8:30 am, a miracle.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Sleep.

a miracle. my head is a little foggy, but there is coffee nearby, and a kid with a tiny tv in her lap. the table is cluttered again, as is regular, and there is a christmas tree bowling set-up, an empty water bottle on its side and an unattached cord, a wide fat white candle, two empty glasses and a box of magic cards. every chair has something on it. a scarf, a stolen coat, a gifted denim shirt, and a pretty brown bag that used to have dumplings in it. it is quite lovely really, that bag, especially for a bag that is explicitly for ‘take away’. i love it when the mundane are treated with craft and meaning.

i’m not sure what i came here to write about today, just know that i needed to. i’ve finished a book lately, Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and it was wildly familiar, while being utterly separate from any experience I’ve ever had. Maybe as a former sidecar to an alcoholic, I recognize it? Maybe its my dream of escape returning, that young mother’s delusional dream? The main character willfully and determinedly tries to drug herself into sleep for a year, in the sincere hopes that when the sleep is done, there will be clarity, blueberries at the end of the rainbow and such. The names of the pills were mostly foreign to me, but I sure do know that my alarm bells will ring if anyone ever mentions any of them to me. but the dream of somehow waking up? a true deep waking up? oh yes. I feel that dream, have lived that one.

maybe that’s what sleeping is all about, for me. the hope for the waking up well-rested, the clarity of mind and purpose. the appreciation of the coffee and the clutter with an uncluttered mind.

and then again, maybe sleeping is just about sleeping. resting. breaking the mind from its yoke.

I guess thats what i came here for, to talk miracles, and waking up, and sleeping. I’m not going to lie, I’m not sure what you’ll make of it. but i’m here for it, still a little bit groggy, because the wakeup was unclear. Definitely cluttered. Its a beginning, and there is alot more. Dare I mention the yoke of ‘woke’? HAAAAA. i dared, and it felt awful, and I’m sorry. But my grimace is heading towards light-hearted on that one, sort of. ugh. sorry.

what’re your daily miracles? How do you wake up in the morning? What is your sleep like? what are the waking dreams?

Humanity

so much

Lovelovemotherexpletive

bob made it through an open heart episode. A surgery in which he was laid bare. Incredible things. He lived here for a month, poor babe. My former father in law died. I spent a lot of time with that family as they moved through the days. I had to stop doing that. My friend told me that i wasn’t grounded because i was a faerie, and what about that. and i went to quaker meeting today because my son led me back. there is earth and spirit everywhere you look.

i’ve been thinking in posts and wounding myself because i don’t write anymore, so here i am, while ducking another responsibility. I don’t know, maybe i’ll just never figure it all out. its birthday/holiday/too much time right now and i’m buckling in and down and hiding behind bob’s right arm pretty regularly. just get through it. dirt and air.

its very windy. i have brussels sprouts waiting for me in the fridge. i am making hamburger helper tonight, poor children. (your mother needs comfort food.) i’ve stopped eating bags and bags of candy and it is so good, but i am full of craven craves. Also, the whole heart thing means a whole never ever approach to cigarettes, which are a very bad but enjoyable reprieve from clean air and responsibility.

things are stirred up, dust and ash, and I’m glancing out, with my hair in Viking braids, either waiting to kill something, or maybe just yell into the wind. but there is blood in my mouth, and i don’t know what that means.

see? so much.

love you, and have missed you.

kate

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Humanity

its sunday. books and bob.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

i’m home. all of my kids are here. my man bob is here, and he is recovering. (Everything went as expected and the crisis is just now losing its bubbling simmer.) There is a fire going and i have two days off in a row, plus more to come. recovery will be slow, and then leap, and then slow again. i’m glad the week of hospital is over, and he and i will have the opportunity to out-stubborn each other over and over again in the next weeks. how many times per hour do you think i can ask what his pain level is? or offer him drinks? food? we will see. i’m overly skilled at obsequiousness.

but also this:

i’ve had more time off in the past week than i usually do, because i have asked for it, and needed it, sometimes to go to the ICU, sometimes to get gift cards for nurses, and I think i’ve fallen into the woolf-y world of recognizing how much my creative brain needs more space. just having some mornings to myself this week has sent me to books, to writing. just two mornings, and the space – the space has been full, and my heart and anxiety fully engaged in another, but really, deeply, I have appreciated it. (only the space, not one other aspect. not one.) the ability to dither, to think, to idly spin in the kitchen.

I listened to Pride and Prejudice in my drives this past two weeks. I’ve also hit up a bunch of Agatha Christie. I listened to one audio detective type series which took place in the US, with an American protagonist, but it was read by a British reader, and the words were pronounced in British format and it made me insane. INSANE. Also, the Grass Harp. so beautiful, and a tree in a house and an escape. You’ll see. I set myself the task of fifty books this year, my fiftieth, and there is no way I will make it. But I’m still reading much more than I have been, so I’m thankful for the impulse.

and this:

One of the things on my list for my fiftieth year was a getaway for myself, and I booked it before all this stuff with Bob, and now I know how much I will need it. See? February, four days in a cabin stoking a woodstove and using an outhouse. There is electricity and a tiny kitchenette. Me and me. four days.

In some ways I do think I will come back different. less tied to my device, more settled in ways that are from my past, i’ll be so happy to see everyone when I get back. I’m moderately thrilled about it. I’ll add some more books to my list, I am sure. And I’ll bring plenty of socks and sweaters.

But that is not until February. And there is a whole lot that will happen between now and then, and I’m here for it, and glad of it.

love you guys,

me.